The Blizzard
by Snaple16
Summary: Chelsea finds herself stuck at Natalie's house in the middle of an awful snowstorm when things take a turn for the worse.


Winter is the worst season for a rancher. When your whole life consists of tilling, watering, and harvesting, having your farm covered in snow tends to leave you a little crazy. The few moments of sunlight normally set aside for errands and socializing now stretch into my entire day - hours of fishing with Lanna and Denny, dark stretches of time in the mines with the other Miners, and, of course, lazy hours spent with my best friends.

"Hey, Chelsea! Get off your lazy butt and give me a hand!" Natalie jeered at me from across the room. I laughed and rolled off of her bed, where I had been flipping through a seed catalog.

"Winter has turned you soft." She said darkly as she dumped two large boxes into my arms. "Unlike some _seasonal_ workers, shipping is a year-round business." She cast a look in my direction as she pushed the door open and proceed through it.

"Sorry, Nat - I have been a bit out of it lately. I can help you finish up before I head home, I know I haven't been much help, bugging you while you work." I apologized, hurrying to catch the door with my foot and follow her. She looked backwards and smirked at me.

"Thanks Chels - you know what I always say! We girls have to help each other out. The guys obviously aren't pulling their weight." She said the last part extra loud as she expertly wound her way around the furniture, heading for the front door. Her brother, Elliot, looked up, his brow furrowed and mouth open, as if to retort, then sighed and looked back down as the boxes he was sorting. I gave him a sympathetic smile as I passed.

"That's not true, Natalie, Elliot is one of the hardest working people on this island!" I pressed as I hurried behind her out the front door and into the snow. I just barely heard a feeble "Thank you" from behind me before the howling of the wind surrounded me. Natalie's laugh sounded foreign as it whipped around me in the gale.

"And that makes his clumsiness even funnier!" I rolled my eyes and bit my cheek to keep from responding. It was impossible to change Natalie's opinion - that was one of the few things I knew from being her best friend. She was as stubborn and prideful as she was hardworking and witty, and I had just learned to take the good with the bad in our friendship. We made our way through the snow as best we could, and dumped the boxes by the pier. Kirk, the boatman, would collect them the next day.

"Whoever has been shipping all of the rocks and metals is driving me crazy. They're so heavy!" Natalie stated over the wind. I blushed and hoped the blowing snow hid my smile. I had been the one mining so much lately. We rushed back to the house as fast as we could, our coats covered in a thick layer of white. Up ahead, we heard an "Oof!" and a small crash.

"Oh, nice going, bro!" Natalie called as we saw Elliot standing up, covered in snow. He had fallen and spilled the contents of the box he was carrying all over the ground. We stopped to help him pick up the precious stones before the snow buried them.

"I'm s-sorry about this, you guys." He said dejectedly. It wasn't the first time I'd seen him drop boxes, and I was sure it wouldn't be the last.

"Yeah, don't forget about it, bro. Make sure to add this to your list of IOUs." Natalie taunted as we picked up the last few rocks. He half smiled and got up. She slapped him on the back, making a dull thumping noise through her thick gloves. "Hurry up, too. Gramps said the weather is only going to get worse from here on out." She called after him. He nodded and picked up the pace, disappearing into the white swirls. Natalie and I continued on our way to the house and climbed through the threshold, stomping our boots on the doormat. Grabbing a few open boxes, we walked back to her room to continue sorting the contents of the shipping bin into different boxes.

"I can't wait for this winter to be over." I groaned, plopping onto the carpet and diving into the remaining boxes. "It'll be nice to have some sun again."

"Winter isn't so bad." Natalie responded. "You've got snowball fights, the Starry Night festival, hot chocolate. It can be cozy if you let it." I looked at her from the corner of my eye and saw her smile faintly.

"Would that hot chocolate be made by Pierre?" I probed, getting ready to tease her. Her face broke into a grin and she laughed.

"Even better, right? You know I can't cook to save a life. So it only makes sense for Pierre to help out and make it."

"Oh, because your mom and the diner don't know how to cook?" I taunted, sarcasm dripping from my words.

"The Diner's hot chocolate tastes pretty good when I run into Pierre there." she said slyly. I chuckled and continued to chuck different rocks into different baskets. We continued chatting for a while, working and gossiping about the island. I nagged her about asking Pierre to the Starry Night Festival, and she duly hit me in the face with her pillow. Suddenly, the door slid open, and Taro stuck his head into the room.

"I don't want either of y'all going outside again! The storm is getting worse - tomorrow's blizzard may be coming in early!" He howled, shaking his thin fist. We nodded up at him and waited for him to close the door.

"I guess we don't have to work so hard after all." I joked. Natalie nodded eagerly.

"You can sleep here if you like. You probably shouldn't walk home in this. I can make up a bed for you on the floor." She said coolly, getting up and walking towards the closet. The door slid open again, this time Felicia, Natalie and Elliot's mother.

"You heard what my father said, right girls?" She said in her sweet fluttery voice. We nodded. "Did you let Elliot know, too?" She asked. Natalie shook her head.

"He's not in here, he's probably in his room. I bet Gramps told him already." She stated. Felicia's brow creased, and she glanced over her shoulder to the rest of the house.

"He's not in his room. I figured he was in here with you girls…." She said confusedly. Natalie stuck out her tongue and shook her head. An uncomfortable feeling flooded through my stomach, and I looked up at their mother.

"Do you think he's still outside, making deliveries?" I asked. Felicia looked pale, and Natalie paused from pulling blankets out of the closet.

"Oh dear," Felicia mumbled. Natalie looked back at her, biting her lip.

"He'll be fine, mom. We can yell at him when he gets back." She said, a slight bit of nervousness in her voice. She turned back to the closet. Felicia glanced at the window, where the sky was growing darker at a quick pace.

"I can go tell him and make sure he gets back safe." I stated, swallowing. It didn't feel right to just sit around and wait for him to come back. Felicia smiled waveringly.

"Natalie, would you go with her? I'd hate for Chelsea to go by herself out in this weather. We wouldn't want to lose anyone….." Felicia asked nervously. Natalie started to groan, but was interrupted by a squabbaly voice as Taro called from the next room,

"Chelsea can handle herself! Any good rancher should have the skill to heard her cows into the barn in a storm!" I stopped for a moment to consider the comparison of Elliot to a cow, but Felicia didn't seem taken aback at all.

"All right. Stay warm, Chelsea!" She said, handing me a scarf. Natalie called goodbye and Taro saluted me as I pushed the door open against the wind. The moment I was outside and let go of the sturdy wooden door, it was slammed back towards the house by the gale. It was ravenous. I blinked the furious snow out of my eyes and put a hand to my brow as I walked towards the pier. The storm had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Despite the white flurries, it was incredibly dark, and the snow was piling up at an alarming rate.

"Elliot?" I called as I trudged through the snow, but my voice was drowned out in the wind. I could barely make out the faces of the houses to my right, and I tried not to panic as I missed a step and slipped a little. What if Elliot had collapsed? I pulled my hat down around my face and continued, scanning my surroundings for a flash of his pink hair. The walk to the pier dragged on, the wind pushing me back, when I finally saw him.

"Elliot!" I yelled as loudly as I could, growing frustrated as only a faint echo of my voice was heard. He was bent over on the ground, and I hurried, scared, as he didn't get up. "Are you okay?!" I yelled, putting my hand on his back. He looked up at me, his face red from the cold and his glasses covered in drops of snow. He said something incomprehensible, and I crouched down next to him, leaning close to hear what he said.

"I s-spilled another box!" He called into my ear. I turned to face him in disbelief, then immediately backed up and blushed as I realized how close our faces were.

"Who cares!? Let's get back to the house, it's crazy out here!" I stood an grabbed his arm, pulling him up. I couldn't even see the contents of the box through the snow. It was lost in the snow. I couldn't see Elliot's face as I shielded my face with one arm, but I had to wonder for a second how he reacted when I didn't let go of his arm. For safety reasons. Of course. It was easier to walk into the direction of the wind, though the snow was beginning to pile up in my boots, and linking arms with Elliot didn't help the walk. He tripped or slipped four times on the way back, each time stuttering an apology into my ear as I pulled him up or was pulled down.

Finally the dim light of the house was in sight. The door swung open right before we reached it, Natalie silhouetted in the lamplight. "There you are! Finally! We've had to hold off dinner waiting for you two!" She scolded. I breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the wind, and began pulling of my coat. Elliot slumped against the wall, his eyes closed, breathing heavily.

"What are you waiting for, give your mother a hand in the kitchen, boy!" Taro snapped at him, hobbling across the room with a stack of boxes twice his height. Elliot's eyes snapped open and he quickly shed his jacket and started towards the kitchen. I watched him from behind, slightly sad, and Natalie rolled her eyes.

"Kid does whatever he's told. It would be awesome if it weren't so pitiful." she scoffed, taking my hand and leading me to the kitchen table. "Gosh, your hands are like ice."

Dinner was fantastic, as Felicia's meals always are. Elliot got quite the scolding for being out too long in the snow, and Taro wasn't pleased that he left the contents of a box spilled out in the snow either. Halfway through his second plate of yam rice, Elliot looked at me, concerned. "H-how are you going to get home, Chelsea? This blizzard is going to last a-all night…."

"She's sleeping in my room, dofus." Natalie explained. He started, then nodded, avoiding eye contact with me.

"Oh, o-of course."

"You kids had best be off to bed soon!" Taro stated, staring at some point in the middle distance. "It's gonna be a blizzard tomorrow!" I tried to follow his gaze, but saw nothing. Natalie nodded.

"Let's go, Chelsea. I got your bed all set up." I nodded, thanked Felicia for the meal, and followed Natalie in cleaning our plates and returning to her room.

"I'm amazed that you went out into that storm. Were you scared?" She asked, flopping onto her bed. I sat down gently on the mat she had laid out on the floor and shook my head in agreement.

"Yeah, I was. It's pretty ferocious."

"Ya'll certainly took a while to get back. What were you up to?" She squinted her eyes at me as she crawled under the blankets.

"What? Nothing, there was just a lot of snow. Elliot was all the way down by the pier, so it took a while to get back."

"Huh, figures. What a klutz." She turned out the light and I frowned a bit. Within five minutes, she was asleep. I rolled over and closed my eyes, but was kept awake by a nagging feeling. A silence crept over the house, and I just couldn't sleep. After half an hour, I quietly climbed out of bed and tiptoed towards the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"C-Chelsea?" I froze as I saw Elliot sitting at the table, flipping through some papers as looking at me with wide eyes.

"Oh, hi Elliot, why are you up?"

"I-I'm adding up the numbers on the shipping log…you c-couldn't sleep?" He asked, meeting my gaze for a moment before looking back at the paperwork.

"Yeah. I'm getting some water." I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water, taking a sip as I walked towards the table to sit down. It felt eerily quiet, an intense silence that surrounded the two of us in the kitchen.

"Um, I, I didn't g-get the chance to t-thank you earlier," Elliot mumbled so quietly that I almost didn't hear him. "I p-probably would have stayed there and looked for a-all the things I dropped for a while if y-you didn't come get me." He looked at the table awkwrdly. "I, I really do a-appreciate it."

"Why didn't you come in when the weather got bad?" I asked, feeling the nagging leave me as I asked what was on my mind. "It was obviously really bad outside!" Elliot was quiet for a moment.

"I didn't want to owe Natalie a-any more favors. She always h-has to h-h-help me, and I just wanted to, to d-do something helpful for once. S-Something that was my own." I saw him bite his lip. He peeked up at me, his bright brown eyes searching me for understanding.

"I get it. But…Elliot, I think you need to give yourself more credit. You work hard, are brave, and want to help people more than anything. That's got to count for something. Even if you mess up, you're still contributing, and that's really what matters, right?"

"Y-yeah. M-Maybe." He said. I tried to catch his eye, and gave him a warm smile. He needed to know he was appreciated. I didn't want Natalie's comments to get the best of him.

"My hands are still cold." I commented, placing them on the table between us. It was true. All through dinner they had felt cold, despite having worn mittens outside in all of the snow.

Elliot nodded. "Yeah, m-mine too." He fidgeted, and I slowly reached over and cupped my hands over his, rubbing them to warm them up.

"C-Chelsea!" He started, flustered. "I-I didn't mean to say that t-to make you h-hold my h-hands!" He blushed and pulled his hands away, fidgeting in his chair. I felt a slight adrenaline rush.

"I did." I said quietly. He nervously pushed his glasses up, then slowly put his hands back on mine, avoiding eye contact. I watched him, smiling slightly while he looked away. "Elliot?" I asked.

"Y-Yes?"

"I think you're really great." He looked into my eyes, his gaze slightly wavering, his face as pink as his hair.

"I-I think you're g-great too." he stammered. A smile lit up my face, and after a moment, I pulled my hands back and started to get up.

"I should probably try to sleep again." I said, draining my glass of water and rinsing it out. I felt a little tense and wasn't sure why.

"Chelsea?" He asked, stopping me as I walked past him. "Do you, uh, want to go to the Starry Night f-festival with me?" I paused, my stomach jumping, and nodded.

"Yeah. That sounds great. That's next Tuesday, right?" I asked. Of course it was next Tuesday. I had been waiting all winter for someone to ask me. I didn't think it would be Elliot. But I definitely wasn't upset. I looked back and he nodded in approval and grinned at me, his gaze steady, not fidgeting in the slightest.

"Thanks, Chelsea." He said. My stomach flipped again, and I walked back to Natalie's room, feeling awkwardly happy.

"I'll see you tomorrow. Good night." I called quietly over my shoulder. I shut the door and let out a giggle of relief and excitement. Natalie rolled over in her bed, and I blushed. When she found out, she wouldn't let me hear the end of it, I was sure. I glanced out the window and crawled back under the blankets. The snow was still swirling and beating up against the window pane. I quietly hoped my animals were keeping warm in their barn. Maybe Natalie was right. Maybe winter wasn't so bad after all.


End file.
